Thermodynamic properties of a simple, confining model

We study the equilibrium thermodynamics of a simple, confining, DSE-model of 2-flavour QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. The model has two phases: one characterised by confinement and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking; and the other by their absence. The phase boundary is defined by the zero of the vacuum-pressure difference between the confined and deconfined phases. Chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement are coincident with the transition being of first order, except for $\mu=0$, where it is second order. Nonperturbative modifications of the dressed-quark propagator persist into the deconfined domain and lead to a dispersion law modified by a dynamically-generated, momentum-dependent mass-scale. This entails that the Stefan-Boltzmann limit for the bulk thermodynamic quantities is attained only for large values of temperature and chemical potential.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, epsfig.sty, elsart.st

Temperature, chemical potential and the rho meson

We describe some applications of the Dyson-Schwinger equations at nonzero-(T,mu). Employing a simple model dressed-gluon propagator we determine the boundary of the deconfinement phase transition and the medium dependence of rho-meson properties. We introduce an extension to describe the time-evolution of scalar and vector self energies.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX with 3 EPS figures; Contribution to the 'International Workshop XXVIII on Gross Properties of Nuclei and Nuclear Excitations', Hirschegg, Austria, 16-22.01.200

Higgs + 2 jets via gluon fusion

Real emission corrections to gg -> H, which lead to H+2 jet events, are calculated at order alpha_s^4. Contributions include top-quark triangles, boxes and pentagon diagrams and are evaluated analytically for arbitrary top mass m_t. This new source of H+2 jet events is compared to the weak-boson fusion cross section for a range of Higgs boson masses. The heavy top-mass approximation appears to work well for intermediate Higgs-boson masses, provided that the transverse momenta of the final-state partons are smaller than the top-quark mass.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure